Talk:Orb

Merge Orbs that share names with pre-existing Mario Party series items with those items

This talk page proposal has already been settled. Please do not edit this section or its subsections. If you wish to discuss the article, please do so in a new section below the proposal.

Merge these orbs with their item counterparts 9-0

When items were first introduced as a mechanic in the Mario Party series, they were just that, items, ranging from classic Mario items such as the Mushroom to new additions like the Skeleton Key. Come Mario Party 5, items were reworked into Orbs, then known as Capsules, which were basically the same as pre-existing items, except that they came in a small plastic orb (probably to fit with the gacha-like capsule machines added in the same game) and could sometimes be thrown onto spaces. Unsurprisingly, a lot of established items returned as Orbs: the Mushroom became the Mushroom Orb, the Warp Pipe became the Warp Pipe Orb, and the Cursed Mushroom became the Cursed Mushroom Orb. It must be emphasized that these Orbs are virtually identical in name, appearance, and effect to their ordinary item counterparts, except that they are contained within a plastic ball. The fact that the wiki currently considers these orbs to be ontologically distinct from the regular items they are based on is a little silly to me, and certainly hurts readability and regularly violates SMW:Once and only once, since these Orbs will (understandably) be mentioned on the articles of their non-Orb counterparts as well.

Working off of shared Japanese names between Orbs and their item counterparts, this proposal would merge the following articles:

• Boo-Away Orb → Gaddlight
• Cursed Mushroom Orb → Poison Mushroom (or a new Cursed Mushroom article, contingent on this proposal passing)
• Mushroom Orb → Mushroom
• Super 'Shroom Orb → Super Mushroom
• Warp Pipe Orb → Warp Pipe

It should be noted that this proposal makes no attempt to merge Orb articles that are visually or thematically distinct from items that have similar effects. While Mario Party 5's Lakitu Capsule may function similarly to a Plunder Chest, it's not a Plunder Chest, and simply mentioning that these two items work similarly is enough, just as it is for Mario Party DS' Snag Bag. This proposal only aims to merge the most clear-cut item-Orb counterparts, which depict the same item inside the plastic ball and act as a clear successor to those items.

Proposer: Pseudo (talk)
Deadline: November 14, 2024, 23:59 GMT

Support: Merge these Orbs with their item counterparts

1. Pseudo (talk) Per proposal.
2. Nintendo101 (talk) Per proposal.
3. Camwoodstock (talk) Per proposal; this makes sense to us, and it's a little surprising that this hasn't been done sooner considering the Once And Only Once Policy. All things considered, it feels like a pretty obvious merge... ;P
4. Exiled.Serenity (talk) Doing anything else would be silly and pedantic. We can't imagine what you would say on one page that is not effectively paraphrasing the other.
5. Sparks (talk) Per all.
6. Ray Trace (talk) Per proposal.
7. Tails777 (talk) Pretty much a reverse idea from something I brought up a while back. So yeah, I can agree to this.
8. ThePowerPlayer (talk) Per "once and only once".
9. EvieMaybe (talk) per proposal

Comments

I recall from those ZoomZike videos that using Orbs in 6/7 may grant the player coins. This isn't on the Orb page at all, and would probably be a small word tax on every page that gets merged since the item being an Orb would no longer be immediately obvious. Salmancer (talk) 18:03, November 1, 2024 (EDT)

This information should definitely be added to the Orb article itself rather than any individual Orb's article, especially since I believe that the number of coins that can be granted depends on the color category of the Orb, rather than the specific one, so it shouldn't affect the goals of this proposal. -- Pseudo (talk, contributions) 18:07, November 1, 2024 (EDT)

A little irked by the proposal above

The results of this proposal is, frankly, inconsistent and a surprising pain when it comes to writing content in articles. While working creating a page of roulette from the Mario Party games, I'm trying to link pages of several capsules and orbs that trigger this roulette to appear, and, while trying to avoid redirects to the orb pages (which, fine, I'll tolerate), I'm instead met with several redirects again that end up sending me to the middle of massive pages, which surprised me and I found very unwieldy as I had to parse through irrelevant text and images to find the brief paragraph of what I want. Truthfully, that was... a bit annoying. My personal experience starkly counteracts with the claim that the split pages hurts readability. I also find that the decision to split Mushroom Orb results in a redirect to Mushroom which is already nightmare of a page especially concerning Dash Mushroom being its own set of issues that I also question the implications of such a merge of Mushroom Orb. Of course, this relates to page quality and not necessarily organizational merit, but I rather Mushroom Orb stays in a searchable state than be invited into debate of whenever it pertains to Mushroom or Dash Mushroom.

I also question why things like Boo-Away Orb is awkwardly merged with Gaddlight while Fireball Orb and Egg Orb have their own pages. I figure because the proposal had to set itself up with conditions ("has to appear in a prior Mario Party") that just exempt them but I'm not very convinced. Maybe the reasoning was solid, but the result just creates a patchwork of links to orbs / capsules and redirects to objects. There are benefits to keeping these pages split, and it helps searching the items and finding the information you want and it's easier to maintain links and whatnot. I don't necessarily agree that the orbs are just items but inside a container; they are a retooled item system but NOT the same item system as in Mario Party 4 and Mario Party 3. Since they were introduced in Mario Party 5, they started as ways to influence spaces (with a fee to use them on yourself, but they're certainly advertised to be thrown for the vast majority of tiems), basically being trap-setters, with Mario Party 6 and Mario Party 7 expanding this to create a category of solely using them on yourself. It's like how Mario Party 8 introduced a Candy system of items that are a bit closer to the original Party 4 and 3 item system, but is more about transformation than the direct player interaction the way things like the MiniMega Hammer or the Bowser Phone worked. If there was a hypothetical Mushroom Candy that let you roll two dice blocks, I wouldn't support merging that to the Mushroom page.

Finally, the proposal mentions "Once and Only Once", which is irrelevant policy now, due to creating problems like the one I experienced. Mario^-HOHO! (Talk / Stalk) 23:08, August 8, 2025 (EDT)